What do you do when you're bored in a meeting or lecture? If we are lucky, the very best thing that can happen to us in 2009 is a massive wave of boredom washing over the whole of architecture. The layoff refugees, the floating graduates, and everyone else who are not able to find steady employment form a giant crop of creative, talented, and bored architects looking for something to occupy their time. The last decade or so have taught the practice of architecture a lot about conducting good service for our clients but it was at the expense of everything else: technical expertise and market success are dissatisfying in the vacuum of political relevance. What will all these people do to put their idle hands back to work?

Less building and more drawing; More time for drawing. It doesn't matter how this new media is produced - with a video camera, computer, pencil, or a giant ball of fire - they will eschew the recent trend towards glowy photorealism in favor of idiosyncratic authorship. In other words, drawings take risks. These drawings, and architects caring deeply about the way they represent their thoughts to the world and to each other, will be the biggest opportunity of 2009. If we can find new ways to manifest architectural ideas that are both accessible to the public and meaningful to a discussion amongst experts this economic slump will have been a fantastic investment in the future of architecture.